I’ve chanced upon an article from which discussed how the earthquake was brought about – from a geography point of view.

For those who are interested: http://regionalgeography.org/101blog/?p=671

March: China blocks YouTube after denouncing as “a lie” footage that appears to show security forces beating Tibetans in Lhasa last year.

June: China blocks Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

Later that month it blocks Google’s services, with search functions and Gmail inaccessible for more than an hour.

The biggest news of all is the outcry as the government orders PC makers to install its censorship software, Green Dam.

But following complaints from internet users, businesses and foreign governments, the authorities back down, saying they will not be compulsory

July: Internet access is cut across north-west China, home to more than 19 million people, after deadly ethnic riots in its capital, Urumqi

Some sites are later restored, but as of January 2010 access remains restricted. Facebook reports access problems and will remain inaccessible from China as of January 2010.

Later that month the government says it plans to implement a five-year program advocating clean online games, starting in 2010.

It also bans websites that feature or publicise online games that “glamorise mafia gangs”

August: The government drops its plan to install the Green Dam software on every new computer sold in China, despite official comments the previous month that it would go ahead after all

September: News websites in China are requiring new users to register their true identities before allowing them to post comments, it emerges.

November: Obama criticises internet controls during his visit to China, describing himself as “a big supporter of non-censorship”.

December: The government says its campaign against pornography on the web and through mobile WAP sites will continue until May 2010, state news agency Xinhua reported. It later emerges China has issued new internet regulations, including what some interpret as an attempt to create a “white list” of approved websites that could potentially place much of the internet off limits to Chinese readers and ordering domain management institutions and internet service providers to tighten control over domain name registration.

At the end of the month, police say the crackdown on internet porn has brought 5,394 arrests and 4,186 criminal case investigations in 2009.

Tania Branigan/ Guardian.co.uk

The US government is investigating allegations of a Chinese hacking attack on Google amid what Washington called “serious concerns” over internet security.

The strike, which the company said was aimed at uncovering information linked to political dissidents in the country, led Google to announce last night that it would no longer censor its search engine in China.

The move could result in Google being forced to pull out of China four years after it controversially announced its intention to launch a censored version of google.cn, the local version of its search engine.

Faced with a conflict between one of America’s most powerful companies and the Chinese government, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, called on Beijing to discuss the situation.

“We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions,” she said. “We look to the Chinese government for an explanation.”

Clinton, who is about to begin a tour of Asia and the Pacific, said it was important for businesses and governments around the world to be able to operate online without interference.

“The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy,” she said.

Barack Obama has called internet security a “national security priority”.

Clinton is expected to give a speech in Washington next week outlining new policies aimed at curbing online crime.

The White House has just appointed a new head of cybersecurity, charged with improving the country’s online defences, which have come under constant attack in recent years.

Hackers have attacked government computers in Washington, London, Berlin and elsewhere – in what some experts say is an orchestrated campaign that is sponsored, or at least permitted to take place, by officials in Beijing.

On a visit to Shanghai in November, Barack Obama said filtering information was not compatible with modern life.

“Unrestricted internet access is a source of strength and I think should be encouraged,” he said.

Google’s strongly worded statement – in which it said the conflict “goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech” – may push the issue further.

Google’s senior figures have close relations with US government officials. Its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, was an adviser for Obama’s election campaign and last week he was among guests at a dinner with Clinton to discuss how technology could be used to promote democracy.

The state department said it had been briefed on Google’s plans but Google’s head of corporate communications, Matt Furman, told the Guardian that the state department had not had any direct involvement in Google’s decision to drop its censored search results.

It would not be unprecedented for the US government to intervene. In June, officials in Washington contacted the internet messaging service Twitter asking it to push back planned maintenance so that news from the Iranian protests could spread.

From Guardian.co.uk/Bobbie Johnson in San Francisco

The number one social network also said it had sent a “cease-and-desist” letter to another website, Seppukoo.com, which also helps you kill off your virtual identity.

The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine site, which features a hangman’s noose on its homepage, deletes profiles, friends and other information on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn for users who provide their account information.

“This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego,” it says.

Facebook, in a statement to AFP, said the suicide site was in violation of Facebook rules.

“Facebook provides the ability for people who no longer want to use the site to either deactivate their account or delete it completely,” Facebook said.

“Web 2.0 Suicide Machine collects login credentials, which is a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR),” it said.

“We’ve blocked the site’s access to Facebook as is our policy for sites that violate our SRR,” Facebook said. “We’re currently investigating and considering whether to take further action.”

Facebook, which claims more than 300 million users, also said it had sent Seppukoo.com “a cease-and-desist letter for similarly violating our policies”.

Seppukoo.com urges users to “impress your friends” and “disconnect yourself” by committing online suicide in the manner of Japanese samurai. Ritual samurai suicide was known as “seppuku”.

“As the seppuku restores the samurai’s honour as a warrior, seppukoo.com deals with the liberation of the digital body,” the site says.

- AFP/so

“Rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as well as the imposition of a string of unacceptable demands from armed groups, have made it virtually impossible for the World Food Programme (WFP) to continue reaching up to one million people in need in southern Somalia,” it said in a statement.

“WFP’s humanitarian operations in southern Somalia have been under escalating attacks from armed groups, leading to this virtual suspension of humanitarian food distribution in much of southern Somalia,” it said.

Mired in almost uninterrupted civil conflict since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre and plagued by recurring natural disasters, Somalia is often described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The radical Islamist insurgent group Shebab, whose leader last year proclaimed allegiance to Al Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden, has overrun and looted several key UN compounds in southern Somalia in recent weeks.

The latest to be attacked was in the southern town of Buale forcing the WFP to close it temporarily together with the agency’s offices in Wajid, Beledweyn and other major southern hubs.

“Staff safety is a key concern for WFP and recent attacks, threats, harassment and demands for payments by armed groups have decimated the humanitarian food lifeline,” it explained.

In the areas they control, the Shebab have also imposed strict conditions on foreign humanitarian organisations, effectively stopping them from operating.

Somalia’s Shebab fighters, increasingly under the spell of Al Qaeda ideology, have been gradually weeding out the few foreign aid groups still operating in the country’s central and southern regions.

Late last year, the Shebab administration in the south-central regions of Bay and Bakool handed aid groups a list of 11 rules to comply with, including a registration fee of 20,000 dollars, payable twice a year.

Drawing fresh comparisons with Afghanistan under the Taliban in 1996-2001, the Shebab also imposed conditions complying with the strict brand of Islamic law they enforce in the regions under their control.

Aid organisations “should distance (themselves) from anything that will affect proper Islamic culture… like promoting adultery and establishing women’s groups,” said a document spelling out the rules obtained by AFP.

World Women’s Day is singled out along with Christmas and World Aids Day as proscribed celebrations, while “preaching democracy” is also listed as a value “interfering with Islam” that should be banned.

“WFP is deeply concerned about rising hunger and suffering among the most vulnerable due to these unprecedented and inhumane attacks on purely humanitarian operations,” the statement said.

But Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage insisted that “there is no insecurity in the regions controlled by Shebab as they claimed”.

He said the group had only told the UN agency it should “buy the food it distributes from Somali farmers instead of purchasing it from American farmers.”

Some estimates say that close to half of Somalia’s 10 million inhabitants are in need of humanitarian assistance, in many cases emergency food aid.

“Even in good years, Somalia is only able to meet 40 per cent of the food needs of its population through internal production. In the last five years, local production has averaged only about 30 per cent of food needs,” WFP said.

“WFP is continuing to provide life-saving food distributions in the rest of the country, including the capital, Mogadishu, reaching more than two-thirds of the hungry it has been targeting – or 1.8 million people,” it said.

“Our people never rely on foreign aid as they claim, Allah assists them, they have their farms,” Shebab’s Rage said.

Backed by the international community but still under-equipped and ill-trained, the security forces of Somalia’s federal transitional government have so far failed to quash a bruising Shebab-led nationwide insurgency.

- AFP/so

This is a feature of one of three overseas programmes that the Ministry of Education (MOE) is now studying, as part of a review to make the teaching of the Chinese language more engaging and useful.

The number of students studying Higher Chinese at O levels has doubled in the past decade.

Should more do well, MOE may also consider setting up one more Special Assistance Plan (SAP) school – which offers more opportunities for enriched Chinese-language learning – said Education Minister Ng Eng Hen yesterday.

The current review comes after an earlier one that led to an overhaul of the Chinese-language curriculum in 2004, which, among other things, introduced a modular system in primary schools.

Under this system, those who speak little or no Mandarin at home start off with simpler bridging modules in Primary 1 and 2; the others read core modules and those who do well take on advanced modules.

This system has seen “positive results” and will be extended to secondary schools, said Dr Ng, speaking at the 12th appointment ceremony for principals yesterday.

MOE now wants to provide more differentiated approaches to cater to students with a wider range of language abilities and home backgrounds, he added.

Echoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s sentiments that were expressed earlier this month, Dr Ng said:

“Recognising that students will have a wider spread of abilities in Chinese language at every level, we really ought to have a system that allows separate groups with different abilities to progress at a more realistic pace at each level.”

This means more subject bands – students would then be able to study Chinese at a level more appropriate to their ability and advance at their own pace, regardless what their classmates were doing.

To help students use the language and build confidence progressively, the MOE is studying Beijing’s Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, the Swiss-based International Baccalaureate and the United States’ Advanced Placement Program.

These programmes are being studied as they are more tailored for students from English- speaking homes, where nearly six in 10 Primary 1 pupils here now come from, up from one in 10 in 1982.

MOE is likely to draw up its own model by integrating the most appropriate features in these teaching systems, said Dr Ng.

He also announced that the oracy component for the Primary Six Leaving Examination and O-level exams would be further increased, beyond the current 35 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.

More information- and communications- technology tools would also be used to help students learn and write Chinese, he said.

Details will be announced in March, in the Budget debate.

Wed, Dec 30, 2009 – my paper

Emaar, the giant property firm part-owned by the government and which developed the needle-shaped concrete, steel and glass structure, has declined to reveal Burj Dubai’s exact height.

Apparently wanting to maintain the suspense, the company will say only that the tower exceeds 800 metres (2,640 feet), putting it far higher than Taiwan’s Taipei 101 tower (508 metres).

Bill Baker, a structural and civil engineer and partner in Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), which designed the tower, said Burj Dubai has set a new benchmark.

‘We thought that it would be slightly taller than the existing tallest tower of Taipei 101. (Emaar) kept on asking us to go higher but we didn’t know how high we could go,’ he said. ‘We were able to tune the building like we tune a music instrument. As we went higher and higher and higher, we discovered that by doing that process… we were able to reach heights much higher than we ever thought we could. We learned quite a bit from Burj Dubai. I would think we could easily do a one kilometre (tower). We are optimistic about the ability to go even higher.’

The 160-floor tower, containing 330,000 cubic metres (11.55 million cubic feet) of concrete and 31,400 tonnes of steel, can be seen from as far as 95 kilometres (59 miles) away. Burj Dubai contains 57 lifts, which will whisk people to 1,044 apartments and 49 floors of office space, as well as a hotel bearing the Giorgio Armani logo. — AFP

(Image from Reuters)